Cross selling is the fastest and easiest way to generate more revenues and at higher profits. Cross sales are also the easiest sales. They have a 3 times higher closing ratio than selling any of your products to a new customer.
So do you have a cross selling process operating in your sales system? Let’s investigate.
How many of your customers/clients buy more than one of your product/services; more than two; ….. How many buy all that could fit their businesses? Take a count and I’m sure you will find a significant drop off from those that buy one to those that buy two, and a tremendous drop off from those that buy three and more.
So why don’t you or your sales people do more cross selling? Here are a few reasons.
Silos
The leaders and subordinates of product lines or services keep their customers to themselves. It could be that they don’t trust the other silo, or they don’t know enough about the other products/services, or they are afraid they may lose control of the customer.
Perceived Sense of Selling
The best people to fine cross selling opportunities are your workers in the field. Unfortunately, when asked to cross sell two mistakes happen to destroy the worker’s access and credibility.
First is worker starts pushing the other products or services to their contact. The contact may not be interested or it is not part of her responsibility. More damaging is workers don’t know enough about the products or services they are pushing and most likely don’t know how to sell – two essential competencies to maintain credibility.
Setting-Up introductions
Other silos’ people just want to get in front of someone from your customer. The mentality is that “If I can get in front of someone (anyone), I can develop it into sales.” Unfortunately if the contact doesn’t have an interest or it’s not his responsibility it’s a waste of time for all three involved.
Solutions
Mangers’ Trust
Each silo manager must sell him/herself to the other silo leaders to earn his/her trust. Most people don’t do this because they feel we are all in this together as one big happy company. Sad to say it doesn’t work that way.
What to See and What to Hear
The strength of your workers is their access. If they know what to look and listen for, they can be a great provider of intelligence. If they know how to ask if there is an interest in solving a problem s/he can be a great source of hot leads. If they try to sell, it can be a greater loss.
Visibility – Your Opportunity Matrix
Most silos don’t pay attention to other silo’s customer base. So make them visible. Use an Excel spread sheet and list all silos customers on the y-axis and all products and services along the x-axis. Present this to each silo manager and ask which of these existing customers are prospects for his silo? Instruct that manager to start establishing trust relationships and offer to teach workers what to look and listen for. Remember, the workers are not to sell.
A Tracking System
Someone has to make sure leads are somewhat qualified so that overzealous workers don’t bring in garbage. Someone also has to hold lead recipients accountable for follow-up – no matter how busy. Otherwise credibility will vanish and leads will stop coming
A Reward System
To sustain a cross selling program there has to be rewards for bringing in leads. There is effort and risk involve for the lead generator. Money is nice but recognition also works well.
Implement these recommendations and your revenues will explode. I guarantee it.
And now I invite you to learn more.
Learn the full Cross Selling System. Just click on this link and get the full analysis of issues and problems and the complete solutions package.
http://www.sammanfer.com/Articles2013/Crosssellingsystemshort.htm
Sam Manfer is the leading expert on selling to CEOs and powerful people. Sam is a sales strategist, entertaining key note speaker and author of TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER$, The Complete Guide to C-Level Selling – getting to and influencing top level decision-makers. Sam makes it easy for any business owner, manager or sales professional to generate quality leads, and beat the competition. Grab your FREE E-Books, Articles and other Advanced Sales Training Tips at http://www.sammanfer.com
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